01.
Glasses for Glass
Some designs are just too intricate to create completely with glass. For this piece, I wanted glasses–lots of glasses. So I’m using a fusible decal. It’s backed with white paper and was printed on our Brother laser printer. However I didn’t use the regular toner cartridge. Instead I used a ceramic transfer magnetic toner cartridge from AAA Toner. Once printed, I soaked it for 30 seconds in distilled water to separate the decal from the white backing sheet.
02.
Decal on the Glass
I carefully placed the backing sheet and decal on the glass, then slid out the paper while holding the decal in place at one corner. I used the soft red squeegee to push air bubbles from under the decal out to the edges. Those would have left bubbles in the final design. I’ve picked Bullseye Glass Dense White Opalescent glass, 3mm thick, to help pop the eyeglasses in the final product. That’s because the decal will fade to a sepia color when the piece is fused.
03.
Close-up of Decal
You can see in the glare how well the decal has taken the texture of the glass. Also visible is the bottom straight edge of the decal.
04.
Clear Powder
Because I’m going to cover the entire piece with a 3mm piece of clear glass, I’ve put a fine, thin layer of clear powder over the decal. It’ll help to minimize any bubbles that want to form under the top layer of clear glass.
05.
Capped with ClearÂ
I like to cap pieces with clear glass for two reasons: (1) it makes the final plate food safe and (2) it gives the underlying design a nice depth. Here you can see the entire glass-decal-powder-glass sandwich. Mmmm.
06.
Ready to Fuse
Placed in the back on the left is the eyeglass plate ready to fuse in the kiln. Below you can see the piece after it’s been fully fused. If you look carefully, you’ll see that the black eyeglasses have faded, but there’s a super nice gradient effect that’s happened. The toner had a 58.99% iron oxide content. I’m guessing that the amount of iron in the ink can be variable as it comes out of the cartridge. However it happened, it’s a very nice effect.
07.
Time to Slump
I’ve chosen a large mold with a subtle curve so that I don’t distort the detailed design of the eyeglasses too much. Below you can see the result.
Results
Final Result
I am delightfully surprised at how nicely this turned out. The fine eyeglass designs held together under firing and even took on a gradient color. There is no trace of the decal sheet itself, and I’ve got a unique design that I haven’t seen anywhere else. The only question is: what next for decals?
FULL FUSING SCHEDULE (RUN TIME 9:48, 16.3 KWh)*
| SEGMENT | RATE (deg F / hour) | TEMPERATURE (F) | HOLD (hours:minutes) |
| 1 | 300 | 1125 | :15 |
| 2 | 100 | 1225 | :15 |
| 3 | AFAP | 1490 | :10 |
| 4 | AFAP | 900 | 1:00 |
| 5 | 100 | 700 | OFF |
SLUMP FUSING SCHEDULE (RUN TIME 7:09, 10.3 KWh)
| SEGMENT | RATE (deg F / hour) | TEMPERATURE (F) | HOLD (hours:minutes) |
| 1 | 300 | 1160 | :05 |
| 2 | AFAP | 900 | 1:00 |
| 3 | 100 | 700 | OFF |
* The firing schedules may be designed for other projects that were fired with this one. Everything was fired in a Paragon GL-22AD.
Do you make these to sell? I own an optical laboratory and would be interested in these for a Christmas gift for customers depending on the price.
Hi Pamela, I’m afraid I don’t make them for sale! But I think that’s a charming idea. If I run across another glass fuser who’d like to take on the project, I’ll definitely give you their information. Thanks for stopping by and all the best.